Topical Blend #1: Near-Death Experience Experience

Gavin VerheyTuesday, April 02, 2013

wo weeks ago, I put up two polls, one with ten options for a Magic deck-building topic, and another with ten options for an entirely non-Magic topic. The end result? I'm going to take the top voted topic in each category—then find a way to talk about both of them in one article.

Ready to see the results? Check it out!

Magic Topics

Bad Deckbuilding Habits

1142

28.9%

Building Beatdown Decks

127

3.2%

Building Control Decks

305

7.7%

Choosing a Deck for a Tournament

223

5.6%

Fighting the Metagame

399

10.1%

Improving Decks through Playtesting

406

10.3%

Manabases

264

6.7%

Making Decks with Cards from a New Set

263

6.7%

My Favorite Decks of All Time

530

13.4%

Sideboarding

290

7.3%

Total

3949

100.0%

Non-Magic Topics

Adventures around the World

233

6.0%

Creative Writing

362

9.3%

Dealing with Losing

497

12.8%

Doctor Who

745

19.2%

Favorite Movie/TV Scenes

297

7.6%

Internet Memes

571

14.7%

My Childhood

34

0.9%

My Mom

150

3.9%

My Non-Magic Friends

222

5.7%

Times I've Come Closest to Dying

772

19.9%

Total

3883

100.0%

All right: so, bad deck building habits combined with times I've come closest to dying.

When Gavin Verhey was eleven, he wanted a job making Magic cards. Ten years later, his dream was realized as his combined success as a professional player, deck builder, and writer brought him into Wizards R&D during 2011. He's been writing Magic articles since 2005 and has no plans to stop.